J. Scott Applewhite/Associated PressNEW DELHI —India’s Supreme Court dismissed on procedural grounds a plea on Tuesday to transfer the New Delhi gang rape trial outside the city.
Advocate M.L. Sharma filed the petition on behalf of Mukesh Singh, one of the five men accused of the fatal gang rape of a young woman on a moving bus last month. The petition claimed that press coverage of the trial and continued agitations had created bias against the accused.
The petition also said that “personal interest shown by the chief minister as well as various cabinet ministers” in the case would cause the judiciary to be “under pressure to work against the petitioner.” Since the crime occurred, the chief minister of Delhi, Sheila Dikshit, and other government figures have pledged to make the city safer for women.
The plea to move the trial out of Delhi was dismissed because of questions raised about Mr. Sharma’s authority to represent the accused, rather than on the substance of the plea.
The Supreme Court bench, headed by Chief Justice Altamas Kabir, said in dismissing the plea, “Your authority to appear in this matter has been totally denied by the accused.”
Mr. Sharma and a second lawyer, V.K. Anand, have both claimed to be representing Mr. Singh. The Supreme Court rejected the plea following an investigation that determined that Mr. Singh was actually represented by advocate V.K. Anand.
The five men accused in the Dec. 16 fatal gang rape are being tried in a fast track court in the Saket District Court Complex in New Delhi. They could face the death penalty if convicted of murder. On Monday, the Indian Juvenile Justice Board declared that a sixth person accused in the case was officially a juvenile, meaning the maximum sentence he could receive is three years in a detention facility.
Also on Tuesday, the fast-track court in Saket completed the pretrial arguments of three of the accused, Ram Singh, Mukesh Singh and Pawan Gupta.
A. P. Singh, the lawyer representing the other two defendants, Vinay Sharma and Akshay Thakur, said he would conclude the pretrial arguments for his clients on Wednesday.
The five men were brought to the courtroom on Tuesday, heavily guarded by security, with their faces concealed under scarves. The men are jointly facing 14 charges, including gang rape, murder, criminal conspiracy, robbery and kidnapping.